Still got it, Martinez.
“Don’t count me in that,” Oakley interjects, and his voice carries the theatrical wounded quality of a man who’s been caught in friendly fire and wants full acknowledgment of the injustice. He points at himself with both index fingers, green eyes wide with mock offense. “I am hereby no longer associated with the judgmental attitudes or judging mindsets of my commanding officer. Consider me a separate entity. An independent contractor of vibes.”
Roman turns to look at him with an expression that could freeze the October air into something solid.
“Go fuck yourself, Torres.”
Oakley laughs—bright, genuine, completely unaffected by the verbal shrapnel, his blood-orange scent spiking withamusement that makes the air around him smell like a winter farmers’ market. The sound bounces off the gravel lot and the paddock fence and the agitated horses who have, at this point, given up protesting the cruiser and are now watching the human drama with the bored attention of animals who’ve seen this kind of thing before.
Alaric sighs.
The exhale is deep, measured, carrying the exhausted patience of a man who has managed these two personalities for long enough to know that intervention is futile and survival is the only realistic objective.
“Well.” He straightens the beige coat with a gesture that manages to look both dignified and resigned. “This is my team I was going to formally introduce you to, but it seems you’re already acquainted.”
“Barely,” I correct, turning to face all three of them. The shift in position puts the October sun at my back, casting my shadow across the gravel in a way that—unintentionally, of course—places me at the visual center of their collective attention. “A proper introduction would be grand, seeing as last time I interacted with that one—” I tilt my head toward Roman without looking at him, the gesture carrying competitive history in a single motion. “—we were both cadets who thought the biggest challenge in life was outscoring each other on a firearms qualification.”
I straighten, the command posture reasserting itself as I file the personal complications of this reunion into the locked drawer where they belong.
“But let’s hurry this up,” I add, my voice shifting back to operational tempo. “I have work to do. This station has been coasting on incompetence for longer than any of us have been here, and every hour I spend on introductions is an hour I’m notspending figuring out why the case files don’t add up and the missing persons reports read like creative fiction.”
The mention of cases catches Alaric’s attention—I see his dark eyes sharpen, the investigator surfacing. Oakley’s grin settles into something more focused. Even Roman’s territorial rigidity eases slightly, replaced by professional interest that his competitive nature can’t suppress.
Good. They’re here for the investigation. Let them investigate. And let me do my job while they do theirs.
Three Alphas. One parking lot. A department that’s been deliberately hollowed out. A town that smells like secrets under its postcard perfection. And an Omega who has three weeks to survive all of it before she gets to go home.
Three weeks.
Twenty-one days of maintaining professional distance from a man whose scent reminds me of midnight in a library I swore I’d forgotten. From an investigator whose bourbon-warm pheromones make my office feel like a place I’d want to stay. From a deputy whose citrus-bright charm and respectful boundaries are doing things to my defenses that charm and respect have no business doing.
Twenty-one days of keeping my head down, my suppressants steady, and my focus locked on the corkboard at home where the real mysteries live.
I can do that.
I’ve survived worse than three attractive Alphas with good cheekbones and inconvenient timing.
The wind shifts, carrying all three of their scents in a single gust—frozen pine and burnt vanilla and candied blood orange colliding in my sinuses like a chord struck on an instrument I didn’t know I was listening for. Together, the combination is?—
Nothing.
It’s nothing.
Three more weeks, Martinez. Then back to the city. Back to the badge. Back to the life that someone tried to take from you.
No messy officer entanglements for you.
CHAPTER 5
Second Place
~ROMAN~
“Absolutely not.”
The cruiser door slams behind me with enough force to rattle the rearview mirror, and I don’t give a single shit about the damage because my hands need something to do that isn’t wrapping around the steering wheel and snapping it in half.
Too late.
